Foliar drench - Liquid soap

I've been reading up about foliar drenching, and all seem to mention adding liquid soap to ensure your drench "sticks" to the foliage.

Howeve, none of the articles I have read recommend a liquid soap (I gues some would have too many chemicals in them) and none seem to say how much to use.

Does anyone have any direct experience of this and can recommend soaps to use and/or ammounts thereof?

Many thanks!

Steve...

 

Thanks Loofah..

Anyone else have experience with this and can recommend soaps to use and ammounts of?

Steve...

 

It's important that detergents are not used. A spot of washing up liquid, however, in weedkiller spray helps to attach to leaves and makes the product more effective on stubborn weeds

 

I think I have got the terminology incorrect, it's foliar feeding and soil drenching, either way its the soaking of the foliage of your plants (top and bottom of the leaves) with either feed or pest control and the soaking (drenching) of the soil with the same.

Thanks for the tip-off about stergene John. And thanks to Verdun also.

Steve...

 

I use a liquid soap as a surfacant when mixing neem oil sprays. I've used Stergene in the past but now use Ecover mainly because we have a bottle handy in the camper van as it's supposed to be eco-friendly and not harmful to septic tanks and watercourses.

 

Decided this year to keep foliage on tomatoes dry....to,keep blight at bay. However, foliage sprays seem to defeat that objective. Going to try milk foliar sprays though so have to work out the logistics of all that.... Think I will feed at soil level and milk foliar spray maybe 3 times during the season. Don't like idea of using soap on tomatoes.

 

I use Horticultural soap (mine came from ladybirdplantcare.co.uk). I think it has no Phosphates (unlike detergent) or some similar chemical difference. I think I bought it on eBay - not exactly cheap, but the small bottle I have has lasted me several years.

I use it with Neem oil [mostly to combat Red Spider] to get it to "stick" to the leaves. Some plants' leaves don't like it (but it could be the Neem oil, rather than the "soap"), so you might want to try a trial first.

 

I use disolved LUX flakes, their about the purest soap product I have found.

Cheers, Tony.

 

I looked up "horticultural soap" to see what defined it as being that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insecticidal_soap

it seems to be defined as a potassium based fatty acid soap.

However, this is more to do with insecticidal properties, than as a "wetting agent", so perhaps regular detergent would do for that job?

Much may come down to whether the soap used damages the leaf, or not. Horticultural soap certainly damages some leaves IME (but the plants have recovered, whereas the damage by Red Spider, if untreated, has been far worse)